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  "I also wonder if her vixen going and hanging out with the wolves for a day helped."

  Jolene snickered, "Yeah, they'd be all over her like white on rice. I know Sheila has been taking full advantage of the two to one male ratio."

  "Well, she was trained to do that sort of thing," Sean sighed.

  "That may be, but she really does seem to love her work!"

  "Not unlike a certain tantric witch I know?" Sean teased.

  "Hey, when you got it, flaunt it!" Jolene laughed, "And I definitely got it."

  "You most certainly do," Sean agreed pulling her over and giving her a kiss.

  "We need to go upstairs, Rox and Dae are waiting in the van, we need to go to Chad's," Jolene reminded him.

  Sean grumbled, he had both of his hands full of that nice round butt of hers.

  "There's always tonight, Hon," she reminded him.

  "Okay, okay," Sean sighed and releasing her butt he took her hand and they went upstairs, and joined the others in the van.

  "Was starting to worry about you two," Roxy teased.

  Sean eyed the back of the van, "Well you know...."

  "We'll be there in a few minutes, Sean," Daelyn warned.

  "Aww...."

  "What's got you going?" Roxy teased.

  "Peg paid him a visit, I think she got his motor running," Jolene said.

  "Lining up another one?"

  Sean shook his head, "I suspect she's been checking out the wolves, at least that was her vixen's intentions last I talked to her."

  "I'm surprised he hasn't grabbed Sheila," Daelyn said from the driver's seat.

  "She's a nice girl," Sean sighed, "but all of her skills revolve around sex and not much else."

  "So?"

  "I'm not that shallow."

  "That's true, you do go pretty deep!" Daelyn snickered as Sean just groaned and facepalmed.

  "Annnd we're here!" Roxy called out as the van stopped.

  "Thanks, I don't know how much more of that I could take," Sean grumbled.

  "Oh you love it, and you know you do," Jolene laughed.

  "I'm just a simple boy who grew up in a simple home is all," Sean sighed.

  "Yup," Roxy agreed, "with three wives and a hell of a guilty conscience."

  "Four," Jolene said, "don't go forgetting Roberta now!"

  "Oh! Right! His baby momma!" Roxy laughed, "How could I forget poor Roberta!"

  Turning a bright red, Sean opened the door and got out of the van.

  Laughing the Roxy, Jolene, and Daelyn got out of the van behind him and they all walked up to Chad's house and knocking on the door they were shown in by a rather attractive young woman.

  "Ah, Sean, Rox, Jo, and Dae! Glad to see you could make it," Chad waved from the dining room table, on which he had what looked like a couple of maps spread.

  "Who's your friend?" Roxy asked.

  "Oh, sorry!" Chad blushed, "Rox, Jo, Dae, Sean, this is Maxine, or Max for short."

  Sean and the others shook hands with Max and exchanged greetings.

  "So," Sean asked coming over to the table, "where'd she come from?"

  "Oh, Claudia gave her to me," Chad said and winked. "She's a gift, sort of a reward for taking over the Western Pack."

  "My mother did not give me to you as a gift!" Max sighed and smacked Chad on the butt as she walked by him and into the kitchen.

  "Claudia's her mom?" Roxy asked, looking into the kitchen where Max was checking on something in the oven.

  "Yup," Chad said, "She's here to help me with learning all of the rules and the laws governing the packs. Truth is," Chad looked towards the kitchen and raised his voice just a little as he grinned, "Max just couldn't keep her eyes off of me, so her mother felt sorry for her and sent her home with me."

  "Actually," Max raised her voice from the kitchen, "he was pining after me so much after we met that my mom was afraid he'd wither away and die if I didn't go home with him!"

  "I was simply being gracious to Claudia for bringing such a nice peace offering," Chad countered.

  "Oh? And whose idea was it that I should help teach you about pack customs?" Max replied laughing as she came back into the room.

  "And who agreed so quickly that your mom choked on her drink?" Chad grinned.

  "Somebody needs to keep you out of trouble," Max said and sidled up next to Chad who put an arm around her. Sean was rather surprised by just how comfortable they seemed with each other.

  "When's the wedding?" Roxy asked.

  "We're waiting to see if we don't kill each other first," Chad chuckled.

  "My mom's been pushing me to find a nice guy to settle down with for a while now," Max admitted, "and when we hit it off, well, I think she was a bit surprised at how fast things progressed."

  "And here I thought you were going to tell me it was a 'wolf thing'," Daelyn said.

  "More of a gaming thing, actually," Chad said. "We're in the same guild in an online game. I just never expressed an interest in her because I was seeing someone."

  "And I knew he wasn't a wolf, so I didn't either," Max finished.

  Sean blinked, "You're that Max?"

  Max looked at Sean, curious.

  "He's Sean two-fifty-six," Chad told her.

  Max's eyes got wide, "Really! Wow! I had no idea!"

  "Sean two-fifty-six?" Roxy asked.

  "There are a lot of guys named Sean in the game," Sean told her.

  "Small world."

  "Yup," Chad nodded, "now, let's go over the plans. As I understand it your first goal is still to free all the lycans, right?"

  Sean nodded, "Part of me still wants to go after Harkins for all of the shit he's pulled on me, as well as what he's been doing to the lycans there, but I figure right now that can wait until later.

  "My first goal is the lycans who are still under his control. We know that they're expecting us, and I'm sure Harkins has figured out some way to force them to fight us."

  "Well, I'll go visit Sawyer tomorrow," Chad said. "Jo, if you want to join us, you're more than welcome. We'll see what intel he has for us, and what we can do to get more.

  "Now, let me show you what I've got so far, what I think we'll need, and you can tell me what you've got for us." Chad said. "Then, we can have dinner and start making some phone calls."

  "Sounds good," Sean agreed.

  Sal looked through the website that he'd gotten from Sawyer. There had been a large 'Come back soon' banner on the page last night. This morning there'd been a registration screen and not much else.

  Registering had been a bit of a pain, they actually wanted either your banking information, or a high limit credit card. There was definitely a lot of 'all sales are final' verbiage on the page as well as more than a few legal threats for winning bidders who didn't pay.

  Sal got through all of that quickly, he had a black Amex card after all, so he wasn't too worried about any kind of credit limits. When he finally got past that part, he was given another link on the site, along with a password. Going there and logging in, he saw that there was a clock counting down, and seven tags up for bid.

  Seven! Sal couldn't believe it! He'd bought enchanted items before; he was familiar with the costs and the production issues. He'd put hundred thousand dollar bids on two of them immediately, with half-million dollar maximums on both.

  He read up on the information about the product, it didn't go into too much detail as to how it worked, but there was enough that Sal knew it worked the same as the amulet he'd gotten twelve years ago. But there was a difference with these; you needed a lycan collar to go with it. The collar was part of the package you were buying, but Sal found that curious.

  Of course the amulet he'd gotten had only been necessary on two different occasions in his life. Neither of those had involved all that much silver, but it had set his clothes on fire the second time, so he'd learned that the amulet had limits. Maybe the kid had figured out a way to deal with that?

  Just then his phone rang.

 
; "Sal here," he answered.

  "Rob Walters, from the Journal," the voice on the other end of the line said, "I came across something in our financial section I thought you might find interesting."

  "What'll it cost me?" Sal grumbled.

  "Five grand."

  "If I think it's good," Sal told the man. He was one of the contacts Tony had given him. A little pricey, but very reliable, Tony had told him.

  "A Mr. Sean Valens bought a building in Sparks just recently. Is that good?"

  Sal sat up and grabbed a pen, "You got a deal, what's the address?"

  Sal wrote down the address and almost swore out loud, it was just a short way down the block from the auto shop that the Bryce's owned!

  He made arrangements to meet the guy and give him the cash. After that, he'd go cruise by the building and see about setting up some sort of watch. It was late now, after ten, so he couldn't stop or he'd stand out. But tomorrow, tomorrow he'd see about setting up some sort of surveillance.

  Wednesday

  Sean was in his workshop, while Chad, Max, and Jolene went in search of intel so Chad could finish up the plan, Roxy was talking with her father about getting help from the other lycans, not that they needed all that much at this point, and Daelyn had gone off to talk to her uncle Samis for the same reason.

  So Sean had figured he'd come down here and work on his machine for a while. The assault was planned for late tonight, sometime after midnight, when everyone was most likely to be in their beds and asleep. Sean wasn't thrilled with the 'party' they'd crashed last time, even though it had all worked out for the best.

  He was just starting to prep the first set of spells to put on the plate when Peg showed up carrying a large box.

  "Hi, Peg. What's up?" Sean asked.

  "Oak asked me to bring this down. Said you'd ordered it?"

  "What is it?" Sean asked, coming over.

  "I don't know, but it's pretty damn heavy," Peg said and set it down on the floor.

  When she set the box down Sean noticed that she was wearing a t-shirt that was almost see-thru, and a pair of tight jeans that encased her nice tight butt like a second skin, running all the way down to the three inch heels she was wearing.

  Peg was definitely dressing to impress somebody, Sean almost felt bad for her getting waylaid by Oak to do delivery duty in those heels, when she obviously had her sights set on somebody.

  "Thanks!" Sean said and coming over he kneeled down and opened the box. Inside were twelve ten-inch tall metal slugs that were vaguely owl-shaped. The entire box had to weigh close to two-hundred and fifty pounds, and Peg had carried it down here by herself. Even for a fox lycan, that was a lot of weight! Maybe he'd have a word with Oak later on.

  "What are those?" Peg asked, bending over and giving Sean a rather nice view down her t-shirt. Peg was definitely put together very well, Sean noticed, and then looked up at her face. She was smiling at him.

  "They're for making batteries."

  "Batteries? The magical kind?" She asked.

  Sean nodded, "Yeah, I got my hands on a big one like this earlier, so I could copy it, but I'm going to need to borrow it again, before I can make the copies."

  "Why?" Peg asked, curious.

  "Um," Sean sighed, wondering how much to tell her.

  "Family secret?" Peg asked grinning. Sean noticed she hadn't changed her position, giving him a nice unobstructed view of that very nice chest of hers. Then again, he hadn't moved either.

  "Yeah, pretty much."

  "So you need the object here to copy it?"

  Sean shook his head, "No, I need the battery here because I need someplace to dump any excess magical energy so I don't fry myself."

  Peg cocked her head to the side and looked at him puzzled. "Why don't you just dump it to ground?"

  "What?" Sean asked, staring at her and totally forgetting the tempting display of her breasts.

  "Dump it to ground. Don't you have a grounding rod in here somewhere?"

  "A what?" Sean asked

  "A grounding rod."

  "What the hell is a grounding rod?"

  Now it was Peg's turn to look confused. "Didn't anyone teach you about grounding?"

  Sean shook his head, "No one taught me anything. Everything I know I either learned from books or figured out on my own."

  Peg's eyes got really wide and all she could think about was that he was self-taught? And he was this powerful?

  "Okay," Peg said, "a grounding rod is just that, it's a rod, usually made of one of the better metals, though copper, gold, or silver work best, just like with electricity, driven into the ground. Say about six feet deep. You dump any excess magical energy into it, and the earth just sucks it up."

  "You can ground magic to earth?" Sean said dumbfounded.

  Peg nodded, "Of course you can. You won't get it back of course, but the ground is full of magic, where do you think the ley-lines get it from?"

  "I had no idea," Sean said, shaking his head. Standing up he went over to the phone and picking it up, he dialed Oak's office.

  "Oak speaking."

  "It's Sean. I need a six foot long heavy copper rod, a sledge hammer, and I guess something to cut a hole in the floor down here so I can drive it through."

  "Sure thing, Boss. I'll get right on it."

  "Thanks for sending Peg down with the stuff."

  "Eh, she volunteered, so I let her handle it."

  "Oh. Thanks," Sean hung up and turned slowly to look at Peg who was looking at the metal pieces.

  "So, just how does this work, anyways?" she asked.

  "The enchanting?"

  Peg nodded, "I don't really have any talent for it, no one in my family ever did. But I've watched people do it on simple stuff. Takes them hours just to do a simple trinket."

  "Well, when Oak sends someone down here with a copper rod and a sledgehammer so I can drive it into the ground, I'll show you." Sean looked around the room a moment and had a thought.

  "Can I just use the pipes in the room?" Sean asked and motioned towards the ceiling.

  "If you're desperate you could, but I wouldn't recommend it," Peg told him, "magical energy can be pretty unpredictable. It won't always take the shortest path to ground and you could end up zapping someone."

  Sean nodded and watched her, there were only two reasons he could think of for why she would have wanted to carry that heavy load all of the way down here. Only one of those required her getting dressed up like that.

  "Where do you get the energy from? I mean, I know we have more now that we're lycans, but making something like this," she fingered the tag on her collar, "has to take way more than we have."

  "You're right, it does," Sean said coming over and standing next to her, smiling down at her. For the first time he noticed that she only came up to his nose, and that she smelled really good.

  Peg looked up at him and blushed, smiling a little shyly.

  "Thanks for telling me about the grounding rod," Sean said and put his hands on her shoulders, "Is that something they taught you?"

  Peg nodded, "We had all sorts of magical training. I'm surprised Jolene didn't teach you about it."

  "Jo's a tantric witch; her magic is a lot different than ours."

  "Oh," Peg said and put her hands on his chest, "well I'd be more than happy to show you everything," she winked.

  "I think I'd like that," Sean said and was just about to bend down to kiss her when someone knocked on the door, then opened it and came inside.

  "Dammit," Peg swore softly.

  "Hold that thought," Sean grinned then turned to the guy who'd entered the room. It was one of his werewolves, they were carrying a long copper pipe, a sledgehammer and behind him was another one of his werewolves with a large drill.

  "Hey, Boss, Oak says you need a hole drilled in the floor?"

  Sean looked around and pointed to a spot next to where he would be setting up his chair the next time he had to make stuff.

  The guy with the drill quick
ly went over and started in on the spot. It didn't take them all that long to get through the concrete, apparently it wasn't all that thick. Sean found it interesting that the guys were checking out Peg, who looked incredibly hot in the tight jeans and thin t-shirt, and that each time they did, she moved a little closer to him.

  After about the fifth time she was leaning into him just a little bit where her hip touched his, and when they looked at her that time, and then looked at him he just smiled and gave his head a little shake.

  They didn't look at her again.

  When the hole was finished, Sean took the pipe and dismissed them, and using the hammer it didn't take him all that long to drive it down until only a foot of it was sticking up through the floor.

  "How much energy do you think I can dump through that?" Sean asked.

  "I'd expect quite a lot," Peg said.

  Sean looked at it and nodded, "Help me set this up," he told her and moving a table over to where the seat was he put one of the owl like slugs on it, then he had Peg lay out a bunch of collars on one side, while he moved Daelyn's silver spool device over by the chair and plugged it in.

  "That's a lot of tags and collars," Peg said looking at the boxes stacked against the wall.

  "Yup," Sean agreed.

  "What are you doing?" Peg asked him, as he then started to strip naked.

  "I don't want to set my clothes on fire," Sean told her. "The last few times I did this, I was in hybrid form, but I might as well see how it works in human."

  Sean noticed she was eyeing him over rather closely as he dropped his clothing on one of the tables out of range of the work. He had to smile, only a month ago he'd be feeling rather self-conscious stripping nude in front of a lovely woman. Now he was used to it.

  "Here's how it works," he told her, "I'm going to use the energy generated by the shield changing the silver, which I will then use to run the spell to enchant the owl there into a battery.

  "The problem is, at some point I'll get a bunch of energy back. I'll bleed some of it off into making those collars there, after I make them, then I'll put what comes back from that into the grounding rod. If that works, everything is fine. If not, I'll use it on that other group of collars.

  "Now don't get too close, I don't want to set you on fire."